God Makes Them Mean

Chapter 12

The new day greets me with spears of light jabbing at my aching, pulsing eyes. I blink. Then blink again. My vision is a circus of swirling, blurry lights. I think I have a headache. My head let's me know my suspicions are well founded by drumming against my temples. Overnight, either my brain got bigger or my skull shrunk. My mouth tastes of alcohol and woman. It's a combination I haven't felt in so long I'm surprised I can actually recognize it.

Through the mist, I see a welcome, familiar shape.

Brandy is opening the curtains. She pushes the windows outwardly. Cold December air comes rushing in like an avalanche. 'This room stinks,' she lets me know. Her tone is judgemental, possibly worse. She picks the empty bottle from the floor and drops into the wastebasket with a loud clang that resonates in my eardrums like somebody discharged a gun close to my ear. I blink again, the windscreen wipers of my eyes trying to clean up the fog clinging on to them. She's dressed in tight fitting jeans and a tank top that shows how stunning her body is.

She turns towards me. Arms crossed in front of her. She's crying. 'Did you have fun?'

'I- I don't know.'

'You must've, seen how you stormed in giggling and laughing and then coming in here to grunt like beasts. You got yourself a loud one.'

'Where-'

'She's gone. I was sitting downstairs. She walked by and stopped when she saw me. You poor darling, she told me. Your Dad needs a bit of training, she added. She asked for taxi money and I gave her some, anything to get her out. I bet you won't see her anymore.'

'Brandy-'

'You told me you were going to be busy. I imagined it was work.'

'It was, but then I needed relaxing.'

'And I ain't good enough for relaxing with?' The ball drops at her words and I connect the dots. 'Am I that ugly?' she presses on, never giving my mind the chance to regroup and formulate a strategy.

I mumble. I stumble upon words, as awkward as a paralyzed man pushed off his wheelchair.  'No no no, it's all the opposite, you're way too good for me.'

She looks at me. I'm naked, not even a corner of the sheets covering me. I must look like a pasty pink whale beached on a shore of creamy white linens. There's this big teardrop at the corner of her eye where the acid has left her skin looks like marshmallows patched together. The teardrop is trapped in this maze of puffy, waxy skin and can't move forward or go backward. It's one of the saddest thing I've ever witnessed. 'Maybe I am, but you've been the only man who showed any kindness to me, ever. And I love you, and I wished it got through that thick skull of yours. Breakfast will be ready soon. And shower for fucksake, you stink of that whore.'

If snakes ever get mean and angry, that's how they must look like.

Not the best starts to a day. As I regain consciousness, images of the double homicide pop into my mind. I look at the water falling down from me and into the bottom of the shower, and for a moment they turn to blood. Not mine, just everybody else's.

I feel like shit. Two young women dead and instead of dealing with that I went and screwed it up royally with Brandy. I would understand her if she'd put rat poison in my scrambled eggs. On the other hand, I never knew, I never suspected. I'm slow on the uptake, clearly.

I go downstairs. She's sitting silently on the opposite side of the table. I occupy my place. 'Thanks,' I mumble. I put tabasco on the eggs, I put tabasco on the potato wedges and on the tomatoes. I wish I could pour a lake of tabasco on my entire life, just to mask the taste of shit.

'It's only two eggs and one potato from today onward,' she informs me. Her voice runs as cold as a frozen stream. Her eyes are hurting, and that hurts me most of all.

'Look.'

'If you're in that phase of your age when you got some wild oats to sow, you better get in shape mister. You won't get a heart attack on my watch. No you won't. I don't want to wake up one day and find you dead, squeezing some cunt to death under you, you fucking fat bear.'

I raise a hand. 'Look, I get it, you're pissed.'

'I'm not pissed at what you did. I'm pissed at how blind you are. Maybe it's my fault, I should've jumped your bones a million years ago, everybody else think we do anyway.'

'Nobody-'

'Don't. Don't. You know it and I know it.'

'Those who matter know the truth, and that's all that matters.'

'The truth is that you're a spineless poor bastards with a heart of gold but the stupidest head this side of the Pacific Ocean. I gotta go out and buy groceries. Don't be late tonight. Or be late, see how much I care.'